It really didn’t matter which player — or which players — were guarding Griffin Barker.

The big sophomore post scored 17 points and pulled down 21 rebounds to lead the Lake Washington High boys basketball team to a big conference win over Juanita, 58-51, on Friday at the Juanita Fieldhouse.

“The kid’s a horse, man,” Juanita coach Sloan Strohl said. “He’s a big kid and we put our strongest kid on him, but he’s got a motor and everything you want in somewhat of an undersized post player. Great passer, great heart, motor, leader. He’s going to be tough for the next two years.”

Juanita (2-2 KingCo, 2-2) put senior Ravi Regan-Hughes on Barker in the first half, but Regan-Hughes was in foul trouble for much of the third quarter. The Kangs (1-2, 2-2) went on a 13-0 run to end the third period, erasing a halftime deficit.

Four Lake Washington players hit 3-pointers in the third quarter alone, a product of better ball-movement after a sluggish first half.

“I think [Barker is] going to get more and more attention from defenses as we go along,” Lake Washington coach Ryan Staudacher said. “Tonight, I thought he did a good job in the second half of, when that double team came, kicking it out and trying to find a shooter.”

Barker often drew the attention of two or three defenders, but still managed seven offensive boards.

“It was tough in the first half,” Barker said. “They were on me, but I just had to get big. Stay in there, battle harder, get physical.”

Though the Kangs struggled to hit outside shots, going 7-for-25 from beyond the arc, Lake Washington hit big shots when it needed to. A corner 3 from Andrew Vincent put the Kangs up 48-39, the largest lead of the game, and gave Lake Washington enough breathing room to ride out a tense finish to the contest.

After a series of hard fouls between the teams, emotion finally boiled over with a technical and personal foul on one of Juanita’s players resulting in four free-throw attempts for Lake Washington senior Sam Linskey.

Linskey hit two of four with under a minute to play, effectively icing the game for the Kangs.

Juanita, destined to be Jeckyll and Hyde given a reliance on the jump shot for success, never found a rhythm on the floor or at the charity stripe.

“We played well enough to stay within reach of it, which is always our goal, but our free throw shooting — you can’t leave that many front ends of a one and one on the rim and expect to win a close game,” Strohl said.

Regan-Hughes finished with 12 points, 10 boards and four blocks for Juanita, and Ryan Trautmann added 12 points. Jayson Schroeder and Zach Miller both had eight points and Brighton Maughan had seven.

Beau Himdahl had 10 points and Linskey had nine points and seven rebounds for Lake Washington.

Next, the Rebels are scheduled to play on Dec. 22 at Everett High School. Lake Washington is set to play Mt. Tahoma at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 17 at Lake Washington High School.